re: Official 2014 Fall Training Camp/Practice Thread

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Also the fact Jake Holland not starting at LB not make anyone feel better/count for something?

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It really is addition by subtraction there. Holland was out there because he was basically the only LB that really knew the defense well enough to run it. Now that our top 2 guys in Frost and McKinzey are going into their second year in the defense, and are playing much more natural positions for each of them, they should be much improved.

That's what I don't get about all the people being critical about how we were some sort of miracle team last year and that won't carry over this year. How that's not a "sustainable" way to run a program. That's assuming everything stays equal to what it was in year 1, which is never the case in the second year. Your biggest improvements in any given system are almost always in year 2.

I mean, my God, we had Eguae starting games at DT at not quite 270 lbs. He was effective getting off blocks and squeezing through to get into the backfield at times, but other times, he got worked by big guards for huge holes. We have a legitimate DT rotation that I think can stack up with just about anyone in the country this year. And we've got a couple players like Wright, Lambert and maybe Adams that can play both DT and DE. That gives us some really nice flexibility for some different packages - the "rhino" package in particular.

We may not necessarily have the pass rush from the outside with the loss of Ford and without Lawson, but I think we get more overall pressure on the QB and we do a much better job of stuffing the run with our DT rotation and LB play. The secondary is still up in the air. I personally think it will be better, but I certainly don't see it being any worse. We haven't had truly DB play for a really long time, with the exception of a few guys, but I think we've got about as much talent in at the 4 DB spots right now than we may have ever had.